Overcoming

 

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Some days are harder than others.

The heart grows tired of carrying its weight.

It needs a gentler song.

These are the last three things that happened:

I chopped veggies for a stir-fry.

Summer rain tapped on the skylight;

I watched the droplets sliding down.

You didn't call.

I love stories about overcoming:

light over darkness, rising

above circumstance.

These days,
midst all the far-right rhetoric,

all I want is a story about kindness:

helpers working to assist refugees,
cease fires - please! -

animals being rescued, sunflowers

sprouting in unexpected places,
their sunny faces

a symbol of never

giving up.

My heart has been faltering.

It needed a cup of tea

and six or seven sweet
and caring words.

And the other night,
I heard them, on TV:
Hope,
enough to put into a poem,
a green tendril taking root
in rocky but receptive ground
and thrusting
- joyfully! -
towards the sun.

I feel the energy
of a new day,
dawning,
as our leaves unfurl
and spread across
the land.

I can't help it. I'll never get over
needing hope in order
to live.
I'll never not need
the watering of our roots
with unity, fairness
and justice,
all of us
turning our heads
to the sun once more.
What a big deal it is -
to feel ready to
believe again.

for Sumana's prompt at What's Going On - Overcoming

I am impacted by the surge of energy in the USA, loud enough to drown the dark rhetoric of the far right. I dare to hope in this particular Overcoming: darkness into light, fear into the promise of a kinder, more just tomorrow. The contrast could not be clearer.